Among the heavy clamor in my head, there is buzz, and laughter, and someone… James’s I think… calling my name.
“Pick her up,” the bokor commands.
I wipe at my eyes, try to clear my vision, note the movement of shadows and colors in the room. It is the shifting of bodies. A crash sounds off to the side. Near the areas where a door should be. Gasps and shouts, the stay of movement. Someone new has burst into the room, entered with a bang, and from the reaction I perceive, I’m guessing that someone was neither invited nor expected.
“Belle!” The slam and slide of feet and someone bends beside me, rests their hand on my arm. “Are you alright?”
“Michael?” I ask. “How did you know where to find me?”
“Locator spell,” he says. “You really should give a brother more time before you decide to run off and enact a crazy plan.”
“There was no time.” I shift up onto my butt.
“Well, I’m here now.”
“You, sir, are an uninvited guest,” the bokor says.
“You’ve hurt my sister…” Michael stands, turns to face the bokor. “So now you have to contend with me.”
“Is that so?” Humor dances around the bokor’s words, making him sound far from worried. “You are no stranger to me, Michael Roussard. You and the mystic that follows you.”
I pull myself to a stand and grab my brother’s hold. He pats the top of my hand to say all is fine and then pushes me back.
“Do you really think your ability to reroute the energy in this room will help you best me?” Chuks the bokor says.
I lean forward. “What is he talking about?”
Michael tilts his face toward mine. “He thinks he has a handle on my magickal ability.”
“Does he?” I ask.
Michael shrugs. Glances over the room, his gaze pausing on Jeanna’s sleeping body, then shifts to James’s beaten form curled in on himself, his collar held firm in John’s grasp.
“Get out, Belle,” Michael says between clenched teeth. He motions to the door through which he came.
I blink, glance at James and Jeanna. “But…”
“Get out!” His voice punches the air. I stumble toward the door and pause.
My brother reaches for the ceiling, his fingers flared wide. Crackling lines of electricity, like miniature lightning, explode around the overhead hanging lanterns. The smaller lines of light merge into thicker strands of power, and the wild band of a bolt shoots straight at Michael. He soaks in the electricity as he would the sunshine.
Sparking wires of energy wind around him, work through him, igniting lines beneath his skin. He drops his stare on the bokor. “You should leave the children out of your dark dealings.”
“Refuse to let the children spread their wings, and they may never learn to fly,” the bokor says with a flair of superiority. “And these children… well, they’ve crossed me in a way I cannot forgive and forget.” His tight glare finds me.
“If you take issue with my sister, then you take issue with me.” Michael’s fingers crackle with blue electricity. With each sizzle I detect a slight scent of sulfur.
“That’s pretty interesting what you’ve got going there.” The bokor slashes a finger through the air to indicate something on Michael’s body. I shift sideways to try to see what he’s talking about, but I can’t get a good front view. “But your light show doesn’t frighten me,’ he continues. “I am king here. Do you not think I—your bokor—would not be prepared for all possibilities?”
“You are not my bokor.” Michael arcs his arms wide, and swings them to meet in the center, directing them right at the bokor and his men. Dancing ribbons of electricity fill the air, zipping and zapping the bokor’s men. The room fills with yelps and crashes, tables and chairs overturning, men falling to the ground.
John ducks, shields James from the surrounding chaos, and Jeanna continues to sleep, unaware of the fight underway.
“Get out, Belle,” he hollers over his shoulder. “Leave your friends and get somewhere safe.”
“Leave your friends.” The bokor’s voice booms, and my head snaps in his direction. “That is a fine example you set.”
“Shut up,” I yell, but my mind is swimming. How is the bokor unaffected by my brother’s magick when his casting is taking a destructive toll on the bokor’s men?
The bokor throws his head back and releases a thunder of laughter. In one quick motion, he yanks the black sleeve free from around his cane, exposing a long, silver rod. Raising the rod up high, he charges in our direction.
The rod works like a magnet for Michael’s electrical attack. Every fiery quivering line of electricity is pulled to the staff, releasing the men… and the bokor, from any further attack.
With a whip of my hand, I send a storm of herbs at him. “Pulverize,” I say.
The bokor counters. “Electrify.”
Michael’s static charge leaps from the rod, into the center of the herbal storm. The tiny plant fibers hiss and fizz. Fall to the ground, devoid of magickal life.
The bokor readjusts his hold on his cane, swings it down on my brother’s chest.
“No,” I scream, thrusting wind at him. He rolls the current back on me, and I fall back, drop to the ground.
The steel tip of his cane presses into Michael’s chest, sending the live current back on him. From source to destination, all the same. My brother’s body convulses and sparks. The scar on his face glows with blue, living electrical charge.
I gasp.
Michael’s chest jolts and his head wobbles.
“Stop it. You’re killing him.” I push off the ground, but my limbs are weak and disagreeable. The simple action borders on impossible.
“Am I?” the bokor counters. “Would that be so bad?”
“It would.” My chest is collapsing, and part of me just wants to finish this ordeal. Pull my brother
